(two years ago, on this date, Mrs. Dr. Caligari had to rushd me to the hospital for emergency surgery. It's been a bumpy two years and hopefully all surgeries are behind me. All in all, it's pretty nice to be here, for another year at least. A huge thanks to all of you who've given me all of your support, help, and love, throughout the years. But I digress ...)
Today is Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night or Beltane Eve.) It is celebrated in most of Northern Europe the night of April 30 to May 1.
Legend has it, this night was the last chance for witches and various demons to stir up trouble before Spring reawakened the land.
April 30, 1938 -
Bugs Bunny first appeared, so to speak, in the cartoon short Porky's Hare Hunt, released on this date. This short was co-directed by Cal Dalton and Ben Hardaway.
The cartoon had an almost identical theme to a 1937 cartoon, Porky's Duck Hunt, directed by Tex Avery and introducing Daffy Duck. Following the general plot of this earlier film, the short cast Porky Pig as a hunter against an equally nutty prey more interested in driving his hunter insane than running away. But instead of a black duck, his current prey was a tiny, white rabbit. Bugs Bunny introduces himself with the expression "Jiggers, fellers," and Mel Blanc gave the rabbit a voice and laugh that he would later use to voice Woody Woodpecker. In this cartoon, he also quoted Groucho Marx for the first time (from the movie Duck Soup): "Of course, you know, this means war!"
April 30, 1948 -
Frank Capra's political drama State of the Union, starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Van Johnson, and Angela Lansbury, premiered in the US on this date.
Claudette Colbert was originally cast to play Mary Matthews. A few days before production began, Frank Capra fired her from this movie because she refused to work into the evening. Capra then hired Katharine Hepburn after Spencer Tracy suggested her.
April 30, 1950 -
The film-noir classic, DOA, starring Edmond O'Brien, was released on this date. (Stick around for the whole movie.)
When Frank Bigelow registers at the Allison Hotel in Los Angeles, the name directly above his is Russell Rouse, one of the film's writers. Also on the register is director of photography Ernest Laszlo and assistant director Marty Moss.
April 30, 1952 -
Mr. Potato Head® became the first toy to be advertised on television on this date.
Over one million kits were sold in the first year. Mrs.Horned Melon or Mr. Cherimoya didn't sell so well.
April 30, 1962 -
Tony Richardson's contribution to British kitchen sink dramas, A Taste of Honey, starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Murray Melvin, and Paul Danquah, opened in the US on this date.
Despite winning Best Actor (Murray Melvin) and Best Actress (Rita Tushingham) prizes at Cannes, Dora Bryan and Tushingham went unrecognized and were barred from the film's celebration party until film critic Alexander Walker spotted them outside and was able to get them in.
April 30, 1966 -
The Young Rascals' single Good Lovin' went to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard singles chart, on this date.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, The Young Rascals were surprised by the success of this track. Felix Cavaliere admitted, "We weren't too pleased with our performance. It was a shock to us when it went to the top of the charts."
April 30, 1975 -
Detectives David Starsky and Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson, began to patrol the streets of Bay City (Los Angeles), when Starsky and Hutch debuted on ABC TV on this date. Even though the US broadcasts claims that it's not Los Angeles but "Bay City", the very first street sign they stop in front of in this pilot clearly reads "Los Angeles", 7 minutes into the show. This is why in many foreign markets, it takes place in Los Angeles, where it is evidently filmed.
On numerous occasions, Paul Michael Glaser has talked about how much he hated the car, as well as playing Starsky, and that he had campaigned to be released from his contract. He said, at the time, that he would have refused to continue with the series, had it not been canceled. Like many TV actors at the time, wanted to become a film director, however his attempts at directing Starsky & Hutch were unfruitful due to too many artsy shots that did not fit in tune with the series, the way it had originally been conceived.
April 30, 1997 -
Ellen DeGeneres' character came out of the closet on the sitcom Ellen on this date.
The show was the highest rated episode the series ever aired, with over 42 million viewers and won an Emmy for writing. Nonetheless, DeGeneres and her show quickly garnered criticism for being "too gay"; the series was canceled after one more season and DeGeneres and guest star Laura Dern faced career backlashes.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
April 30, 1789 -
George Washington was inaugurated and took office in New York as the first president of the United States on this date. He took his oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street and spoke the words “So help me God,” which all future US presidents have repeated.
Please note: The oath as prescribed by the Constitution makes no mention of God, or of the Bible.
April 30, 1803 -
The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, more than doubling the size of the nation. The price paid was fairly steep, 50 million francs ($262 million dollars in today's currency, roughly 4 cents an acre, for the 828,000 square miles.).
In addition to the city of New Orleans and western Louisiana, the purchase included Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; most of North and South Dakota; parts of Minnesota, New Mexico Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado (portions of Texas were included for ordering before 1804). President Jefferson had hoped to pay for the acquisition using beads, but the people of New Orleans already had so many beads they held a party each year to give them away.
April 30, 1900 -
John Luther "Casey" Jones was born March 14, 1863 in southeast Missouri. While he was still a small child, his family moved to Cayce, Kentucky, which is how he got his nickname. As a boy, he liked trains - HE really liked trains. In 1878, at the age of 15, he went to work for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad as an apprentice telegrapher. By 1890, "Casey" had reached the pinnacle of the railroad profession as a crack locomotive engineer on the Illinois Central Railroad.
In 1899, Jones was given a regular passenger run on the Cannonball route which ran between Chicago and New Orleans. On April 29, 1900, Jones was in Memphis, Tennessee, from the northbound Cannonball when he agreed to take the southbound Cannonball because the scheduled engineer called in sick. He left Memphis at 12:50 am, 95 minutes behind schedule, but made up almost an hour between Memphis and Grenada, Mississippi, nearly 100 miles away. By Durant, 55 miles farther down, they were almost on time.
At Durant, Jones received orders to "saw by" two freights that had taken the siding in Vaughan. The two freights were too large to fit into the siding, leaving one end on the main line. If the "sawing" maneuver had been done correctly, the freights would have allowed the approaching train to pass the first switch, and then the trains on the siding would move past the other switch. However, an air hose on one of the freight trains burst, applying the brakes on the freight cars behind the break, and left them immobile on the main line. Meanwhile, Jones was traveling excessively fast, possibly up to 70 miles per hour, and did not have enough time to brake. When collision seemed imminent, Casey told his fireman, Sim Webb, to jump for it, but Jones rode the engine into the cars and was killed. It is believed that because Jones stayed to slow the train, he saved the passengers from injury and possible death (Casey himself was the only fatality of the collision).
Popular legend holds that when Jones' body was pulled from the wreckage of his train his hands were still firmly latched onto the whistle cord and the brake.
April 30, 1900 -
Another file from: Thing my teachers never told me - A group of American businessmen, led by Samuel Dole (of pineapple fame,) had overthrown the traditional monarchy of Hawaii several years earlier and operated the island themselves, occasionally clashing diplomatically with the US.
The US Congress finally got around to lend a legitimacy to the coup by American citizens by passing the Hawaiian Organic Act on this date. The provisional government finally allowed Hawaii to become a US territory after receiving a guarantee that they would not be punished for the coup.
April 30, 1904 -
At 1:06 p.m. President Theodore Roosevelt officially opened the St. Louis World’s Fair commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Although the Fair was originally scheduled to open in 1903, the opening was delayed for a year while the elaborate fairgrounds were completed. Visitors were awed by 142 miles of exhibits shown in palatial buildings like Festival Hall the centerpiece of the fair boasting an auditorium seating 3,500. Cass Gilbert designed the art museum in Foret park, the only building left over from the fair.
Other wonders seen at the St. Louis World’s Fair were the Liberty Bell, the largest pipe organ in the world, the introduction of ice cream cones, the invention of iced-tea, and the fair popularization of the hot dog with prepared mustard. The fair lasted 7 months and inspired the phrase "Meet Me in St. Louis."
April 30, 1939 -
On a very hot New York Sunday, The 1939 World's Fair had its grand opening, with 200,000 people in attendance. The April 30 date coincided with the anniversary of George Washington's inauguration as President in New York City. Although many of the pavilions and other facilities were not quite ready for this opening, it was put on with pomp and great celebration.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the opening day address, and as a reflection of the wide range of technological innovation on parade at the fair, his speech was not only broadcast over the various radio networks but also was televised. NBC used the event to inaugurate regularly scheduled television broadcasts in New York City over their station W2XBS (now WNBC). An estimated 1,000 people viewed the Roosevelt telecast from about 200 television sets scattered throughout the New York area.
Little remembered but equally important, the View-Master was introduced at the World's Fair that day.
Don't worry about those storm clouds overhead (it's just World War II).
April 30, 1943 -
The British submarine HMS Seraph dropped ‘the man who never was,' a dead man the British planted with false invasion plans (which indicated the Allies would not invade Sicily,) into the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain on this date.
German agents discovered the body of a non-existent RAF major, bought the ruse and were unprepared for the actual attack on that island.
April 30, 1945 -
Holed up in a bunker under the Reich Chancellery headquarters in Berlin (conveniently called the Fuehrerbunker), blushing bride Eva Braun had a hankering for Almond Roca. Finding none available, she decide to chew a cyanide capsule and commit suicide instead (she was impulsive.) Distraught honeymooner Adolf Hitler, never one to go it alone, decides to commit suicide himself by swallowing a cyanide capsule and (to gilt the lily) shoot himself in the head (he was having a very bad day for an Evil Bastard.)
Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler's dreams of a "1,000-year" Reich.
Guess that didn't work out for him.
April 30, 1975 -
The capital of South Vietnam - Saigon, fell on this date. Communist forces gains control of Saigon. The fall of the city was preceded by the evacuation of almost all the American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians. The evacuation culminated in Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history.
The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.
This was a really big Oops for America.
And so it goes.
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